It's been awhile!

So yeah...it's been months. I've been busy and not feeling the need to blog at all. I've been so very blessed in so many ways. I have had an answer to prayer - I have a job for the remainder of the school year. It's with the kids I started the year off with - I've been subbing all year. It started off as covering for a friend, but now she's moved on to another school and this school wanted to keep me on. Yeah! :)

I have a wonderful group of friends. Most of them are new to me. But I love them all! I have a great church. Wonderful church!! It's been such a blessing to be a part of this group. I help with the youth group. I love those kids. They teach me something new each week. Their innocence and love for God is so pure and great. It's amazing to see.

My other friend is someone I work with. She is just so amazing. I cannot believe the luck I had in being blessed to have her be placed upon my path. She doesn't judge me. She is one of the most phenomenal person's I know. I love her. She has a great faith in God and she let's everyone know about it. I wish I had that...that ability to just witness. I will. One day! Just knowing this friend has helped me through some tough times. I love it that I can email, call, or just speak with her and she is open to listening and giving me advice or just a hug when needed. She is awesome!

I am grateful for so many things. Although I still have some fears for the future, I am trying to believe that God has me covered. I'm trying to lean upon His understanding for me and believe that He will show where I'm supposed to be. At the moment, He's been telling me to stay put. I think that's pretty ok with me. I just hope that in the fall their will be a full-time job in a school that was able to give me a contract and a salary!

Loving life! Loving friends! Loving God!

Chocolate High

I think I was on a chocolate high last night. I couldn't fall asleep! I had gone to a ladies chocolate and chick flick gathering. It was fun. Lot's of yummy chocolate goodies to eat. I didn't even eat that much, but...it must have been enough to keep me going until the wee hours of the morning. 2am-ish to be exact-ish. I then, of course, woke up at 7:30. Because why would I sleep in? Why would I sleep until at least 9? I wouldn't!

The night was fun. It was through my church. We met at the pastor's house - his wife's house - and chatted with one another. I met some lovely ladies I'd never met before. And then we watched "When in Rome." Cute movie. I ended up getting sucked into a conversation, which was fun, with two of the ladies after everyone else had left. Someone noticed the time was 10:20 and we were all surprised. My eyes were starting to water. My thought was that it was because I was tired (which I was) although you wouldn't know it since I could fall asleep! UGH!

It took me a 1/2 hour to get home and then I was up watching a cool show on BBC America - Dr. Who - anyone seen it? It's kinda fun!

Anyway...maybe my mind mixed with the chocolate just was on overload. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep better tonight.

Visitors

Yeah!!! So, I'm super excited. I have a friend that I worked with in Germany coming to visit for a few weeks. She's coming from England. She's not been to much of the US so she's excited as well. It ought to be fun. She's a sweet girl, too! I'm looking forward to the reunion of sorts! Also, another friend will be in So. Cal. at the same time. She's back from Japan for the summer holiday. She and I were the first grade team. I'm really excited to hang with her for a bit.

It's a mini-reunion. I so needed this. I miss these folks so much! I wish more could come and visit as well! I'm trying to talk two of my other friends to come visit at around the same. One is in LA and the other is in VT. Not sure that it'll work out for them. But it'd be so sweet if it did!

I haven't been able to stop smiling since I got the news that Laura was going to come. She's being a bit spontaneous - her words - and it's going to be great fun!

I don't have the funds to travel this summer, but having people come here...it'll be alright! It'll be almost as if I were traveling! I'll have the British accent in my house for two weeks! How fun is that! :)

Plus she'll celebrate her birthday while in the states!

I'm just so happy about these visitors that I could burst!!! Yippeee!!! I've actually jumped for joy a few times! How crazy is that??!! I've found myself walking around the house and spontaneously jumping up and down and clapping just because I'm uber excited to see these folks! I then think, "my neighbors must think I'm crazy!" But then I think, "Oh well! I don't care!"

Amazing how things work out!

Wine Cellar Bash

As the school year is coming to a close and as many of us are moving back to our home countries, or onto other countries, we decided to throw a big bash for our colleagues...Yep, we are THAT nice!

It was a fabulous night full of laughter and dancing and of course WINE!!!

This was our DJ and his wife....He did this for us for FREE....isn't he a sweetie pie???

So our lovely DJ pulled all of us up on the dance floor to dance the bloody Maccarena!

I love this woman! Can't wait to go visit her in Vermont! I wanna be a leaf-peeper in the fall!

As you can tell, we really didn't enjoy ourselves at all! LOL It was great....Can you believe that we're teachers??? Yes, we teach your lil' guys the three R's.

Good times in a wine cellar!

Writing prompt time...again

Although the prompt said to write about a recent email exchange...I'm changing it to a recent IM exchange I had with a friend. I think I do more IMing now...I love Skype. Totally has helped me stay in contact with friends and family (and for free - with most of my friends and fam - which is fab-u-lous!) Here it is, my IM with a friend of mine who is in Vietnam.

Her: Hey! How's it going?

Me: Hey you! I'm ok...didn't get the job at Marywood, so a bit bummed, but it was a longshot! How are you?

Her: Aw, I'm sorry, that sucks. I'm good.

Me: Yeah, well, they went with a computer teacher...

Her: I'm actually doing a bunch of applying this evening....computer smumputer

Me: That's all I did yesterday...I sat in front of the computer and looked at job openings. Ugh! I saw that there are a few in Ho Chi Mihn City. Maybe you should stay!!

Her: yeah, ugh! Nope, not staying! I wanna go home.

Me: I hear that...but I'm thinking I'd need a job more than I need to be home...we'll see, we'll see. Any other interviews for ya?

Her: Yeah, I think I'm in the opposite position, I need to be home more than I need a job. I can always sub. No other interviews.

Me: Did you hear back from the schools you sent your video to? And yep...subbing is always an option...if I really feel the need to be home, then...I'll do that.

Her: Nope, they said they would send them to the principals, and "let me know"

Me: Ugh!

Her: Yup

Me: Perhaps a little reminder that you're still interested is necessary. I had my interview with the school in DC last Monday...went well. Said they were in the middle of interviews though...but gonna send a little reminder about who I am tomorrow and say that I'm still interested in their school...We'll see. I hate searching for jobs!

Her: Well that's good hopefully that will work out for you. Yeah, the job search sucks. I think I will send them a reminder today.

Me: Good girl!!!

Her: On a lighter note I actually went out drinking last night!

Me: Yeah, if it wasn't for my bloody condo...I'd be ok with going to a few other areas.... Drinking? You? Wow! Hope you didn't wake up with a huge hangover!

Her: No, I didn't do the excessive drinking, I still don't trust everyone you know to be that out of control but I was good and drunk. It was great.

Me: Good for you! Always nice to have a night to social and drink. Fri we went to a friends house for a BBQ and had wine, or mojitos, margaritas. It was fab.

Her: Yeah I had a good time. I hung out with a bunch of Vietnamese, Korean, English, Australian, Irish and a New Yorker, fantastic!

Me: I bet that was great fun! What day do you fly back home again? It's in June, right?

Her: June 14th

Me: I'm a month behind ya. July 16.

Her: I'll be in LA at 10:05 am on the 14th, Sunday...oh wow

Me: Boy will you be nice and tired! I get into PS at like 6 pm. But I stop in Chicago and then again in Phoenix. Ugh!

Her: How long are you staying in Ireland? 2 stopovers huh?

Me: Not sure yet. Prob somewhere between 7 and 10 days. Esp if I'm on my own...I think that will be enough. You should come!!! That would be fun!

Her: Yeah, I think so. I leave for Kuala Lumpur on Thursday....come to Ireland?!

Me: Yes!

Her: or to the airport?

Me: Ireland babe! I'm looking at a school that has an opening in Kuala Lumpur!

Her: Huh, now I have to look up ticket prices and put off applications... Oh really? I'll let you know how it is.

Me: Oops..sorry!

Her: (Of course)

Me: Anything to be distracted right? I didn't do any cleaning yesterday...although that was my hope....and it's not looking good today...

Her: Pretty much. I got a pedicure this morning...you know because I had to have one...so why are you applying for the job in DC not in Northern Ca?

Me: But I must...our relocation person is coming to check out my apt. to see if she'd be willing to get someone into it for next year...so must be clean by Tue. Don't know...it was an int'l school and the east coast would be interesting. I've applied to lots of jobs in Vermont, too.

Her: Huh, that's cool.

Me: Yeah....I miss our pedi and mani days...They're not the same here...no cool foot baths and massaging chairs.

Her: Yeah, same here...no massage chair but it was nice. I got a mani pedi (a nice one) for $10. That's the nice thing.

Me: Wow!!! $10....amazing...Have you been able to save a bunch? Can I be nosy and ask what you take home each month?

Her: Yeah, I save a good amount. I bring home $2100. I get $2400 each month with my housing allowance.

Me: Nice! I think I might need to go to Asia just to afford to keep my condo! Europe is great...I love it....but it's not a place to teach if you want to save money!

Her: For example this month...I bought my plane ticket home, my plane and hotel for Malaysia, paid rent, bought shoes, clothes, drinks and every other thing I wanted including expensive coffee and food and I am still managing to save $800. yeah, Asia is totally the place to save.

Me: Wow!! That's amazing...nice for being able to enjoy the finer things in life, huh? Like manis and pedis!

Her: Well, "finer" on a busy dirty street and miserably hot places! Such a dichotomy. Well yes I do like the mani's and pedi's.

Me: Funny girl! But....you understood what I meant.


There's a bit more....however....it just goes on a bit more and then a few British terms get thrown in there. I love that I use "bloody" in normal conversation, as well as "bugger" (although that's a really horrible term!) Hope you were able to follow the conversation I had with my friend.....it's so much easier when you're in the IM moment....

Happy May Day!

Back to childhood

I just started to follow Mama Kat's Losin It blog. She's got a great way of writing! I'm enjoying it! I found that she's got a little writing prompt to do. So here it is:

You can go back to your childhood for one day. What day and age do you choose?

This is interesting because I've just done a writing lesson (a memoir) with my first graders. We are studying the past and the present - how things have changed. I figured it would help them understand the "past" if they took a "picture" from their past and wrote about the moment. In order to teach that, though I had to think of a moment from my past. I didn't have the picture to help me as it's in a storage unit (I hope!) in Palm Springs, and I'm in Germany....kind of far to go searching for a picture. But I remember this day or rather this moment.

"Check out my new camera!" I said to Sandra. I had just gotten a new Polaroid camera and was enjoying taking pictures with it. "Here, let me take your picture." I swung the picture back and forth until the picture popped out and showed it to Sandra.

"That's so cool!" she said. "I'll take one of you!"

"Let me see the picture!!" I exclaimed after Sandra took the Polaroid picture of me posing by the clothesline. It was summer and Sandra had come over to play for the afternoon.

"Sandra, go stand over there," I pointed to the garage, "and make a funny face." She did. After the minute or so it took for picture to show up, we were laughing at ourselves. I stood on my head and Sandra took a new picture. "It's actually funny when you turn the picture over as if I were standing," I said. We laughed some more.

This went on for ages - well, at least until the film ran out. We thought we were pretty cool models. We used the clothesline pole to help us sometimes, with our poses (I think we might have been good pole dancers had we just had the music!)

*Being ten years old, with a good friend and a Polaroid camera was fun. Looking back at those pictures today (or when I move back) I remember how much fun the world was. No fears and no embarrassment.

Now, I didn't write all of that for my students. I wrote a portion of it, and then I wrote a version that was fairly dull so that they could see the difference and try to go with a more excited memoir of their own. It's fun to go and look at the past - especially when it's good memories!